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He sighed, a sharp dissatisfied sound. "It matters little now. We are on our way to a meeting with Lucifer. I will deliver the wayward Androgyne and —"
I brought my knee up, sharply, he countered the movement, and we almost spilled to the floor. He regained his balance, fingers biting in cruelly. "Stop." Did he sound breathless? The scar turned to molten metal on my shoulder, another warm pulse of Power filling my nerves and veins.
My skin crawled. I opened my mouth to scream at him, but he overrode me.
"Once she is delivered to him, she has agreed to distract his attention. I will strike him down even as he gloats over her. Will you stop?"
I went utterly still, a clockwork spi
When I did speak, it was a low, gravelly whisper. "How can I trust anything you say to me?"
"I have gone into Hell for you, not once but several times." He let go of me in a sudden convulsive movement. "That should be enough. Even for you."
"You think I've been on a fucking holiday cruise? Where do you think I've gone?" My arm fell to my side, Fudoshin avoiding a stack of crates strapped to the floor.
"As far as necessary. As I would for you." His hands dropped. His coat was just as black as ever, but that shock of silver-threaded hair… he was different. Too different.
We had both changed out of all recognition. What was left?
"Let me get this straight." I swallowed, my dry throat clicking. "You expect me to stand there and trust you while you hand Eve over to Lucifer — the very thing he's always wanted out of this game." He wanted me to tell him where she was, and when I wouldn't I was a Judas goat, meant to lure her in. He used me, you used me — what's the goddamn difference?
His left hand came up. In it, satiny wood gleamed, and the sheathed Knife at my hip gave a slow sonorous ringing, like crystal stroked just right. The finials of its other half cradled Japh's hand, moving slightly, yearning out of his grip and toward me. His fingers trembled as he held it, as if he wanted to drop it.
He took two slow steps forward as the hover's gyros stabilized, the bounce telling me we were ashore now. We'd just made landfall.
Where the hell were we?
Off the map, sunshine. You've just gone off the fucking edge of the world.
Japhrimel offered me the Knife. "Take it."
My heart thumped against my ribs. I eyed his hand, eyed the other half of the Knife. So he had retrieved it. Where had he hidden it in Hell?
Would I ever have the time or the courage to ask him? He cupped the blade in his right hand and released the hilt, offering it like a goblet of wine to thirsty gods. If it hurt him, his face showed no sign. Time ticked by as the hover began to climb, the earpopping of altitude a heavy auditory weight.
If you take that, Da
And if he pulls a mickey on you one more time, you can bury the thing in his guts.
My tat shifted on my cheek, diamond pinpricks under skin. My emerald lit, a spark popping in the gloom. Japhrimel waited, half of the Knife trembling in his hands, aching to clasp its twin and be whole again.
"It's yours." Very softly, his mouth its usual straight line after it had given the words to the air. Still, he didn't look at me, his eyes hidden behind that fringe of hair. A muscle in his cheek flickered. "It was made for a hedaira's hand."
Go ahead, Da
I didn't realize I'd moved until I closed my fingers over the hilt. It hummed in my hand, happily, and the memory of the sick gulping noise turned my stomach over hard.
Japhrimel raised his eyes, shaking his hair back. He shook both his hands free, flicking his fingers. "Will you trust me?"
Four little words. I weighed half the Knife in my hand, its mate vibrating against my hip like a slicboard rattling before it dumps you. I don't know if I should. I don't know if I want to. "I don't know if I can."
His shoulders dropped. My stomach rattled and flipped, as if I was tumbling in freefall again. Roaring wind in my ears, prepared to leave all this struggling and striving behind. The look on his face was like being stabbed, and all the broken places inside my head gave a flare of devouring pain.
Why was I such an idiot for him? Just when I thought I had no reason to trust him, he went and did something like this. Like giving me a weapon.
My mouth opened. "But I can try."
We stared at each other. The hover groaned and rocked as the angle of ascent sharpened. I stood there gripping half the Knife with white-knuckle fingers, my head suddenly full of the rushing noise of Paradisse wind sliding past as I prepared to splatter myself over the pavement below. I'd been so ready just to give up.
Again.
Japhrimel nodded, a short sharp movement. The silver in his hair glittered. "Thank you." Gravely, as if he hadn't just handed me the only weapon in the world that could possibly kill him.
The scar flamed with soft heat, and his aura over mine settled, thin fine strands of gossamer energy binding together rips and tears, healing the rent tatters of my shielding with infinite care. Was he doing it consciously?
Did it matter?
I searched for something else to say, another question to keep him standing here and talking to me. "What happened to you? In Hell?"
One shoulder lifted, dropped. Goddamn shrugging demons.
"Nothing of any account." Dismissive.
The sharp bite of frustration whipsawed through me, drained away. "Come on, Japh. Your hair."
"It doesn't please you?" He tilted his head slightly, letting the dim orandflu light play over its shagginess. Goddammit. "That's not the point. I just wondered what happened." You're not going to tell me a damn thing, are you? Especially not now. You just want me to trust you blindly. You want to control everything about this.
But the weight of half the Knife in my hand said differently.
"Tell me why you almost killed yourself fleeing me. ' His hands spread slightly, expressive. I glimpsed dark shadows across his palms — from the touch of the Knife? I wondered.
The edges of his coat ruffled as the hover shifted, settling at a new altitude.
You really want to know? "I…"How could I put it into words? Because he'd tried to force me. Because Eve was the last shred of Doreen left walking the earth, and I had to believe there was some humanity left in her — because if there wasn't, there was none left in me either. Because I could no longer pray, because the Devil had robbed me of myself, because Eve was sticking it to Lucifer where it hurt for any number of reasons, none of which I could explain without a half-hour, absolute silence on his part, and a whole lot of luck. Or maybe a demon-Merican dictionary, if such a thing existed.
"Exactly." He clasped his hands behind his back, his feet placed just precisely so. "There are some things that ca
"Where?"
"Where else would Lucifer meet us? Where he can see us coming." With that, he was gone through a hatch door, a brief slice of daylight outside stinging my eyes.
I let out a sharp breath. The shaking in my arms and legs circled like a beast waiting to pounce.